1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to an apparatus for and a method of connecting a computer to a network and, more specifically, to a network connection adapter that enables a local area network (LAN) to provide Internet access to a computer that is not a configured member of the LAN.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since computers were invented, people have been connecting them together. Computers were originally connected in resource-sharing schemes to provide multiple access to expensive resources such as printers and disk memory. Next, local area networks (LANs) were developed using a variety of protocols such as Ethernet and, then metropolitan area networks (MANs) and wide area networks (WANs) were created. Today, millions of computers are connected in the large, WAN-like architecture of the Internet, which provides users with access to an enormous amount of resources spanning the planet. The Internet is rapidly changing the way that people work, communicate and share information.
During the period when networks were developed, computers themselves were also changing. The original computers had little processing power and memory by today's standards and often filled a room the size of a warehouse. Today, computers, or workstations, have orders of magnitude more processing power and memory and can weigh only a few pounds. The combination of small, portable workstations and the networking of multiple workstations has created a number of issues. For example, when a user travels with a computer, it is often desirable to connect the computer to a network that is different than the user's typical network. This may present a problem because most networks are configured to respond to specific computers, and it is impractical to reconfigure a network each time a user is visiting with a non-local computer.
There are techniques that partially address this issue. First, developers created a bootstrap protocol (“BOOTP”). The BOOTP which enables a diskless workstation to discover an assigned internet protocol (IP) address, an IP address of a BOOTP server and the location of a boot file to be copied, or “downloaded.” In this manner, the workstation can load the information it needs to operate on a host network when the workstation is powered up. However, the host network typically must maintain an assigned IP address that corresponds to a unique hardware address associated with the workstation's network interface card (NIC). In the case of a visiting computer, this is probably not the case.
Two other systems that assign IP numbers to computers on a network are the Point-to-point protocol (PPP) and the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP). Both PPP and DHCP are protocols in which a network server assigns an IP address upon request. The network server may assign a domain name system (DNS) server as well. These features can simplify network administration because software on the network server rather than a system administrator keeps track of IP addresses. PPP and DHCP are commonly used for dial-up computer users. However, a visiting computer may not be configured for either PPP or DHCP; and neither PPP nor DHCP address the issues faced by a computer that does not support either protocol. In addition, some computers may be configured to accept only partial; information about a DNS server from DHCP. When such a computer attempts to connect to a network that is not configured to recognize it, the computer cannot communicate with other computers on the network and cannot locate a DNS server for communication to computers outside the network.